Cold Case

The First Day

MIDORIYA'S POV

It took my entire shift yesterday, but the basement was finally clean. I organized everything by the last name. They were all homicides, so I wasn't sure how to organize them any other way. In total, there were a little over eight-hundred cases in this basement. I shoved two desks to the center of the room and moved the rest to the storage room down the hall. I couldn't stand having a cluttered workspace. There was a corkboard and whiteboard against the back wall. The side wall had rows of filing cabinets, and the side wall had a couch, mini fridge, microwave, and coffee station—just the basics, but enough to get us by the next year.

I already started going over the information for the first case. It was a homicide of a twenty-nine-year-old. There were two suspects eight years ago, but there wasn't a lot of concrete evidence to pull either one in. I started researching to figure out where they're at now, but that has never been my area of expertise. I didn't realize how much I appreciated Shinso and his skills until I didn't have him.

"Well, isn't this place warm and inviting?" Bakugo asked as he pushed the door open, walking into the room. I looked down at the clock and saw it was nine on the dot. I got here a few hours ago so I could finish everything.

"Yeah, it's wonderful." I said in a bored tone while continuing to flip through the file in front of me. It's about as wonderful as him being here. I don't want to spend an entire year with him telling me what to do and how bad I am at my job. Not that I am bad, but private investigators always think they're better than us.

"What's the quickest way for me to get out of this hellhole?" He scoffed, dropping a small box on the desk across from mine.

"First would probably be recognizing it's 'us' not 'me' One of us isn't getting out of here without the other." I mumbled, writing down the witness's and suspect last known addresses and phone numbers. We have to start somewhere, and this is probably our best bet. "Secondly, we need to fix whatever they said we need to fix," I said in a quiet tone. I'm debating if I need this job for the first time since I started here. Is it worth having to work with him for the next year?

"And lastly, we need to not kill each other in the process." He sighed. My eyes flickered toward him for a moment. He had bags under his eyes and looked defeated. I know I had only met him a few days ago, but this wasn't the person I was expecting him to be. I figured he would be rude and arrogant the moment he walked in here.

He unpacked the few things in his box, placing them on his desk. I saw a picture frame and some of his office supplies. Other than that, he brought two coffee cups: one mug and one for travel. Luckily, it looked like he liked to be organized with only the basics as well. After he was done putting his stuff where he wanted, he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"I don't know anything about cold cases, so you'll have a lot to teach me." He mumbled, walking back to his desk with his cup of black coffee.

"Are you okay?" I asked as I set the file on the desk. I have no idea why I asked that. It's not like I cared about him or how he was feeling. Why does my mouth work faster than my brain sometimes?

"I don't take criticism well." He shrugged.

"Obviously, I don't either." I shrugged. That was the whole reason we were here, wasn't it? I didn't want to take the criticism he gave me and ended up starting a fight. "But nothing can be done about it now," I added. He let out a heavy sigh as he sat in his chair. I don't know why I put the desks against each other like this. I should have put him beside me or something. I don't like the idea that we're constantly going to be facing each other like this.

"Well, we're here to fix that, aren't we?" He asked. Actually, I was here because he felt the need to put his opinions in places they didn't belong. He was here because he couldn't stand to be wrong or mind his own business. If he had kept his mouth shut, neither of us would be here.

"Apparently." I sighed.

"Now, can you fill me in so we can get the hell out of here faster? The sooner I never have to see you, the better." He scowled, looking down at the file in front of me.

"So we're going to be dicks to each other?" I scoffed. I was going to try and play nice so the time would go by faster, but not if he was going to act like that. I picked the file up from my desk and dropped it over on his. "Aya Minoski. Murdered at age twenty-nine. The suspects were her husband and her brother. The case ran cold when both of them had an alibi." I said coldly.

"Where was the crime scene?" He asked harshly.

"It's right in front of you on the paper." I rolled my eyes. Two can play at the jerk game. I usually wasn't mean, but he set a fire in me that filled my body with rage. My heart was beating rapidly as his cold red eyes stared into mine. He took a deep breath and picked the file up.

"These are different than what I usually look at. Can you show me how to read them?" He asked quietly.

"There's the attitude we need to have," I responded, pulling open the bottom left drawer on my desk. "If we're still at each other's throats in a year, we're not going to get out of here," I added while pulling my white binder from the drawer.

"Noted." He groaned.

"We'll just talk about the cases and keep things simple. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is spend a year here with you as well." I flipped through the pages in the binder until I found the one I was looking for. He didn't say anything in response as I slid the binder over to his side of the desk.

"What's this?" He asked.

"This is how you read the cold case files." I pushed myself from my chair and walked around the desk to his side. "It's not as complicated as it looks, I promise." If he went straight into private investigating after the academy, he's probably never seen a file like this before. "The next page has the updated codes and abbreviations."

"It still looks like gibberish." He muttered. I stood over his shoulder as I looked at the case file. To me, it looked normal. Why did they assign us here when he had no experience? There are plenty of other places we could have been transferred to. Why here?

"We'll go over it together so I can explain a few things." I walked over to my side of the desk and grabbed my chair. I wheeled it next to his and took a seat. He scooted another foot over, so we were further away, like sitting next to me would give him a disease or something. This was going to be one hell of a year.